One thing we are going to bring back for the update is settings for each formation - and then some. There will be a page to update formation settings which is currently going to be tied to the user and shared across all your teams. We may review that, but for now we'll see how that works. The page will be like the Position Roles in that you will have Basic and Advanced settings. New users will be set to Basic and once you switch to Advanced, you can't go back to Basic - unless we find you can convert advanced settings back to basic ones, but it will probably cause more problems than it would solve.

For Basic Settings: You will have a list of Formation Sets, one for each basic formation. The formations page will be display only and you will click on a formation to edit it. For each formation, when you edit it, you will see a slot for each player on the field. For each slot, as appropriate, you will be able to set the slot's Rush Distribution and Pass Distribution. When the formation is used on a play, the player's chance of rushing or being the target of a pass will be determined by the distributions set for their slot.

If you have Advanced settings enabled for Position Roles, you will be able to select from a position appropriate role for each slot. For instance, you could set a RB slot to "Possession RB". This means when this formation is used, it will use the Possession RB depth chart.

For Advanced Settings: Not only will you be able to set the default settings for each formation, but you will be able to add new formation sets for any of the formations (and name them for sanity's sake). This will allow you to set up different I-Formation sets with different Rush and Pass distributions as well as different depth charts at each slot. This means you can have one I-Formation set up for rushing and one set up for passing, for instance, and even more variations to allow you to focus on short or long passing or inside or wide rushing.

For advanced settings, the distributions will also be split into Rush Inside, Rush Wide, Pass Short, Pass Medium, and Pass Long, so you can control which players are more apt to run inside or outside or get short versus long passes.

These plays will then be what you select in the playbooks. The playbook is pretty much similar to how it is now in that you will select a Formation Set, set the chance of calling run or pass, and set the chance of it being Inside/Wide or Short/Medium/Long. How the formation set comes into play is that it is used to determine which depth charts are used to put players on the field for that play and which players are likely to get the ball for the given play.

If I had images I could post it would probably make more sense, so as soon as I get something that can be posted, I'll try to do so. Hopefully this makes sense without pictures, but let me know if you have questions. Essentially with Basic settings you have just as much control as you have today and if you touch nothing at all and just ride with the default settings, you'll get pretty close to how it is now.

I need to ask though. Is it going to matter? <<<No sarcasm here>>>. As we all know by now that the engine works off of the notion that regardless of attributes that on any given play; the underdog can achieve the positive play and not the favorite. And for veteran coaches we have put up with the very unfortunate "impossible odds" strings of seeing the underdog get the positive plays in the playoffs. Meaning the team with the higher attributes will get the odds of getting more positive outcomes to draw upon but most top notch coaches have experienced(many times) getting %$^&ed over in the playoffs with just the most redicoulous string of bad luck.

So, will it be worth it to us to micro manage our opponents team to see if they have slow linebackers and to run outside runs rather then inside. Or maybe I might want to use my tight ends to exploit poor linebackers one game while another opponent might have great LB's and poor DB's and I might want to target my wr most of the game.

If we took the time to do this with the way the play outcome is selected now; I fear it would do more harm then good (messing up my balance) NOT even exploiting our opponents weaknesses.

Will true game planning yield value compared to how time consuming it will be?

That's the whole focus of the update is to make it more important about which player you are having run inside versus outside, or which LBs are inside versus outside, and such. With the way the engine currently works, you are right, this level of detail might not be noticed in the results. Hopefully the update will produce results that returns the strategy to game planning and building your team. It's a huge undertaking which is why we are moving a lot more cautiously with this update than other updates we have done. As we work on the update we'll be able to build a little better map of information about which ratings affect which actions and hopefully do a better job of documenting such in the FAQ and player guides. We'll be working an open beta in for this update and we'll work with feedback from that on if we need to cut back on any of these new settings.

I, for one, can't wait! I'm in the minority but I like the game as it is, and I'm sure I will like it even more with the updates! I've put a LOT of time into learning how to game plan with this engine, and feel confident that, with even talent, good game planning can win 90+% of the time. That said, the more power we have the more game planning will matter. Thanks again, Norbert, for all of the time and effort...it's truly appreciated!

So in Advanced settings, I will be able to create a set for Trips, Wishbone, 4-4, or any other formation, and name them "Way Ahead" and put my backups in the depth chart, and use these formations at the end of a blowout win to get all my backup players some playing time?

Posted by champ83 on 6/20/2012 1:20:00 PM (view original):So in Advanced settings, I will be able to create a set for Trips, Wishbone, 4-4, or any other formation, and name them "Way Ahead" and put my backups in the depth chart, and use these formations at the end of a blowout win to get all my backup players some playing time?

If you wanted to set up some Position Roles for backups and set a depth chart with backups, then you could do it. I'd like to have a setting that let's you get backups in, but I'm not sure if that will get in this update so the backup Formation Set could be a good work around until it is in. So while that's not the intention of Position Roles and Formation Sets, it certainly is a creative use of them.

Posted by champ83 on 6/20/2012 1:20:00 PM (view original):So in Advanced settings, I will be able to create a set for Trips, Wishbone, 4-4, or any other formation, and name them "Way Ahead" and put my backups in the depth chart, and use these formations at the end of a blowout win to get all my backup players some playing time?